Truth & Rumors: Cap'n Couples likes Bradley's game, hmmm...

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

If you’re looking for hints about who will get Fred Couples’s second captain’s pick for this year’s Presidents Cup team, his captain’s blog on PGATour.com is a good place to start. (Sure, take a minute to reflect on the idea of "blogger Freddie Couples.")Couples has already said Tiger Woods will get one of his picks, and many big names will be outside the top 10 in points qualifying, which ends after this week’s BMW Championship. So is PGA Champion Keegan Bradley leading other candidates like Rickie Fowler, Zach Johnson and Brandt Snedeker? Here’s what Couples said about the PGA champ.

In terms of my role as captain of the U.S. Presidents Cup Team, the last month or so has certainly been encouraging as well. From Keegan Bradley's victory at the PGA Championship to Webb Simpson's victories at the Wyndham Championship and Deutsche Bank Championship, plus Dustin Johnson winning The Barclays, it's been a great stretch for the young Americans on TOUR. I had the opportunity to play with Keegan for the first time at the Shell Houston Open back in April and was really impressed with what I saw. He's a young guy that plays fearless golf and never gives up, which really was apparent on Sunday at the PGA. If he ends up on our squad in Australia, I know he's a player we can count on.

Sources have indicated that the European Tour is about to negotiate an Irish Open deal with potential sponsors Zurich that could see the event move from its recent August Bank Holiday weekend slot to the last weekend in June.But while that comes two weeks after the US Open at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, it also clashes with the PGA Tour's AT&T National at Congressional Country Club, on from June 28 to July 1.McIlroy is currently working on his 2012 schedule as he plans to rejoin the US circuit next season and play on both sides of the pond.But the European Tour will have to be careful when deciding on a potential date change if it does not want to run the risk of losing Ireland's top-ranked player.Stating that McIlroy could be lured to Washington DC during Irish Open week, [agent Chubby] Chandler said: "Rory is considering his options at the moment. The tournament in the States is at Congressional so it is reasonably attractive too!"

Webb Simpson goes silent Twitter over ‘negativity’

Q. You Tweet fairly often. Some guys have decided that they don't want to Tweet. What do you get out of it? WEBB SIMPSON: Well, I like Twitter. I like the social media aspect of it. But kind of the main -- my main reason I signed on was just kind of to read what other people said. I loved hearing what other athletes say or other people I like to follow. But at the same time, getting in contention, I get more followers; I win, I get more followers, and there's a lot of negativity there, people saying really mean things. So last week I deleted it on my phone. I still have the account, but it was just kind of -- it's hard not to read what people say. Don't get me wrong, 90 percent of the people were very complimentary, but you still have people out there that they want to share their opinion any way possible. I'm signed off currently right now. Q. So you're not worried about getting a lot more followers if you were to win like $10 million? WEBB SIMPSON: Well, I figured I'd keep the account because in case my sponsors want me to do a little more talking on Twitter about my sponsors. But I might sign back on to check it out if I won the FedExCup.